Harvey Smith (born 1966) is an American video game designer and writer, working at Arkane Studios.
Harvey Smith | |
---|---|
Born | 1966 (age 57–58) |
Other names | Witchboy |
Occupation(s) | Video game designer, writer |
Years active | 1993-present |
Employer | Arkane Studios |
Known for |
Smith has lectured in various places around the world on topics such as level design, emergent gameplay, leadership, game unit differentiation,[1] future trends and interactive narrative.[citation needed] At the Game Developers Conference in 2006, Smith won the Game Designer's Challenge: Nobel Peace Prize, for his design featuring a mobile video game that facilitates political social action.[2]
Smith was born and raised on the Texas Gulf Coast.[3] He grew up playing games like Pong[4] as well as Dungeons & Dragons.[5] He read books by Ursula K. Le Guin, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov and Roger Zelazny, among others.[6] He served six years in the U.S. Air Force, including tours in Germany and Saudi Arabia.[3] Smith moved to Austin at the behest of a friend to try his hand at video game design.[7]
Early in his career, Smith worked in quality assurance (QA) at the Austin-based Origin Systems, where he became the QA lead for games including Super Wing Commander and System Shock.[8] In 1995, Smith became an associate producer for Ultima VIII, working with co-founder of Origin, Richard Garriott. Smith then pitched his own game, Technosaur, a real time strategy game inspired by Dune that would have featured "cybernetically augmented velociraptors". The project was canceled by publisher Electronic Arts after 18 months of work.[9]
After leaving Origin in 1996, Harvey Smith went to work at Multitude where they released FireTeam.[10]
After Multitude, Smith's game development career continued in Austin, Texas working with Warren Spector at Ion Storm as lead designer on Deus Ex as well as its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War.[11] After this he unsuccessfully pitched a further game in the Thief series, to be called Thief: Modern, in which central character Garrett lived in modern-day New York.[11]
Smith then left Ion Storm to work at Midway Games, originally to work on a title called Criminal with "immersive sim values" inspired by Michael Mann's 1995 crime film Heat, but shifting ultimately to work as lead designer on BlackSite: Area 51.[11][10][8] On November 29, 2007, Smith came out publicly to announce how unrealistic the BlackSite: Area 51's development schedule was and through mutual agreement left Midway a day later. He claimed the schedule caused the low reviews due to the fact they were not able to test the game properly.[12]
In 2008, Smith became partner and co-creative director of Arkane Studios in Austin alongside the company's president, Raphaël Colantonio.[10] They went on to release the stealth-action game Dishonored in 2012, which won many Game of the Year and Best Action/Adventure accolades including the 2013 BAFTA award for Best Game[13] and 2012 SPIKE VGA for Best Action/Adventure Game.[14] Smith also co-directed the sequel Dishonored 2 and its standalone expansion Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.[15] Smith is co-director on Arkane Austin's Redfall, an open-world first person shooter, due for release in May 2023.[11][16]
Smith's semi-autobiographical novel, Big Jack is Dead, was released on April 2, 2013, by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.[17] That same year it was on Kirkus Review's list of "Best Indie General Fiction".[18]
Year | Title | Role |
---|---|---|
1994 | Super Wing Commander | Quality assurance |
System Shock | ||
1995 | Ultima VIII: Pagan (CD-ROM version)[19] | |
BioForge | ||
CyberMage: Darklight Awakening | Producer, designer, writer, voice actor | |
Technosaur (cancelled)[20] | — | |
1998 | FireTeam | Designer |
2000 | Deus Ex | Lead designer |
2003 | Deus Ex: Invisible War | Director |
2004 | Thief: Deadly Shadows | Designer |
2005 | Area 51 | Designer, writer |
2007 | BlackSite: Area 51 | Executive creative director |
2009 | Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor | Quality assurance |
KarmaStar | — | |
2012 | Dishonored | Creative director, designer, writer |
2013 | The Novelist | Quality assurance |
2016 | Dishonored 2 | Creative director |
2017 | Prey | Quality assurance |
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider | Creative director | |
2023 | Redfall | Studio director |
Year | Title | Category | Publisher | ISBN |
---|---|---|---|---|
2013 | "Big Jack is Dead" | Fiction | CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform | ISBN 1482563657 |